Dear Chelsea - Twice with Mitch Albom

Episode Date: October 23, 2025

Mitch Albom is here to discuss why there will never be a Wednesdays with Morrie, his unexpected path to writing the best-selling memoir of all time, and how the regrets of his past led him to the blessings in his present. Then: A new writer isn’t sure where to start with her memoir.  And an established author worries the secrets of her past will cause her family to lash out.  * Books Discussed this Episode: Twice - Mitch Albom The Little Liar - Mitch Albom Tuesdays with Morrie - Mitch Albom Circe - Madeline Miller Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant - Anne Tyler The History of Love - Nicole Krauss The Right Stuff - Tom Wolfe * Need some advice from Chelsea? Email us at [e-mail] * Executive Producer Catherine Law Edited & Engineered by Brad Dickert * * * The views and opinions expressed are solely those of the Podcast author, or individuals participating in the Podcast, and do not represent the opinions of iHeartMedia or its employees.  This Podcast should not be used as medical advice, mental health advice, mental health counseling or therapy, or as imparting any health care recommendations at all.  Individuals are advised to seek independent medical, counseling advice and/or therapy from a competent health care professional with respect to any medical condition, mental health issues, health inquiry or matter, including matters discussed on this Podcast. Guests and listeners should not rely on matters discussed in the Podcast and shall not act or shall refrain from acting based on information contained in the Podcast without first seeking independent medical advice.  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Do not follow my example. Listen to Crimless, Hillbilly Heist, on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. The Big Take podcast from Bloomberg News keeps you on top of the biggest stories of the day. My fellow Americans, this is Liberation Day. Stories that move markets. Chair Powell opened the door to this first interest rate cut. Impact politics, change businesses. This is a really stunning development for the AI world

and how you think about your bottom line. Listen to the big take from Bloomberg News every weekday afternoon on the IHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, I'm Kyle McLaughlin. You might know me as that guy from Twin Peaks, Sex and the City, or just the Internet stand. I have a new podcast called What Are We Even Doing, where I embark on a noble quest to understand the brilliant, chaos of youth culture.

Each week, I invite someone fascinating to join me to talk about navigating this high-speed rollercoaster we call reality. Join me and my delightful guests every Thursday. And let's get weird together in a good way. Listen to what are we even doing on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I just announced all my tour dates. They just went on sale.

It's called the High and Mighty Tour. I will be starting debuting my new material in February of next year. So I'm coming to Washington, D.C., Norfolk, Virginia, Madison, Wisconsin, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Detroit, Michigan, Cleveland, Columbus, and Cincinnati, Ohio, Denver, Colorado, Portland, Maine, Providence, Rhode Island, Springfield, Massachusetts, Chicago, of course, Indianapolis, Indiana, Louisville, Kentucky, Albuquerque, Mesa, Arizona, Kansas City, Missouri. St. Louis, Missouri, Minneapolis, Minnesota, Nashville, Tennessee, Charlotte, North Carolina, Durham, North Carolina, Saratoga, California, Monterey, California, Modesto, California, and Portchester, New York, Boston, Massachusetts, Portland, Oregon, and Seattle, Washington. I will be touring from February through June. Those are the cities that I'm in. Presale started last week, so tickets are flying. I haven't added second shows yet.

but we probably will be to some of these. So go get your tickets now. If you want good seats and you want to come see me perform, I will be on the high and mighty tour. Hi, Catherine. Hello, Chelsea. Can you hear the waves crashing? I sure can.

And your, like, hair is very beachy right now. Well, it's looked like shit for the past two weeks. I've been walking around in a bucket hat. Yeah, oh, seriously? Like, one of those hats that basically, like, hides your head from the sun. Oh, okay. But then I realized, like, I look so much better with sun.

I might as well just get some sun and then laser it off when I get back. But I don't really have a lot of downtime when I got back. I mean, I've been sleeping so much in Majorca. I drove 45 minutes. I was like, okay, I've got to take dog to a real beach because the beach in front of my house is great. But there's no dogs allowed on it until October 31st. Until October 31st. Oh, it's like while people are swimming, there's no dogs.

I get it. Yeah, until October 31st, like past October 31st. And I'm like, that's the day I leave. But so I go in the mornings and I go at night. But I was like, oh, let me take him to a really nice dog beach. So I drove 45 minutes to Palma to some shithole beach where there were dogs running. And I see this big German shepherd. I'm like, oh, that looks scary.

Uh-oh. And Doug is like, you know, he's playful. He wants to play with everyone. He goes up and he bothers them like until they play with him. He's a puppy. And this dog was like, she said into me in Spanish, is that immature, like an older dog or a younger dog? I'm like younger. She's like, no, no, no.

and then the dog just launched onto Doug and like grabbed him. Luckily, Doug is so furry that he didn't break his skin because he was holding onto him and I was like ripping him. It was such a dramatic scene. Oh my God. I'm so sorry. It's okay. He was fine.

He forgot about it two seconds later. We went to a different part of the beach and he was like submerged in sand and water. So he has a short memory. But so then we get home and he's covered in sand because he went in this really low sandy beach. and I don't want the sand in the house, right? So they got him a little kitty pool to put him in. He hates that. He hates being hosed.

So I bring him upstairs to the pool pool. And there's like, we have a little mini pool, as you know, upstairs America. I bring him out to the pool, I put on his life preserver, and I just pick him up and throw him in the pool. And it was ridiculous, his reaction. I mean, he is such a pussy. So, and then after I traumatize him, he comes running to me for comfort. So I feel like a man who abuses his white. I feel terrible.

But I can't take the sand. I'm like, Doug, you have to agree to one form of rinse off. Right, right. It's the hose, the kitty pool, or the big people pool. I know he's got so much hair. It gets like in all the nooks and crannies. So if you didn't wash him off afterward, it'd be coming out for days and days and days. No, I mean, there's so much sand in my bed.

I've given up caring about that. I just am like taking other Xanax. Just like a nice exfoliant, I suppose. Yeah, yeah. I'm going to need a nice exfoliant. Yeah, Doug's going to need a real nice exfoliant, actually. Anyway, so that's nice. It's to be really nice being alone and not having people here and just being with me and my dog.

Yeah, usually you have a bag brown. I've made hard-boiled eggs about 13 times. I know how to do that now. I've made egg whites about four times. I've made what it else. Oh, I make yogurt. Well, I don't make yogurt, but I mix the yogurt. She didn't say she was going to bring those eggs in the airplane, Catherine.

Don't get ahead of yourself. No, I did not say that. I get rid of it. Thank you, Brad, for driving in. Exactly. Good timing, Brad. Good timing. However, we have a great episode this week.

One of my favorite authors, he wrote The Little Liar. He wrote Tuesdays with Mori and he wrote my new favorite book twice. Mitch Album is here. So say hello to him. Hi, Mitch. Yeah, hello. Hi. So nice to meet you.

How are you? I'm fine. Thank you. My pleasure. Nice to meet you, too. Nice to meet you. I'm a huge Mitch Album. fan huge oh yes the little liar is I've given that book to so many people it is one of my

favorite books it takes such a dark subject matter and I don't know if this was your intention but the way that I read it was it was almost like a fable like you were talking about something that really happened but managed to make it more digestible and it was beautiful and everything I mean this book is so beautiful too this book is new book is called twice it comes out on October seventh. And this is a very interesting subject matter. Mitch album has written, I think eight number one New York Times bestsellers. I'm right behind you, Mitch, by the way. I have six number one New York Times bestsellers. But mine are more memoirs. And yours... I'm sure you'll pass me very quickly. I don't know. Forty-two million copies. I don't think I'm anywhere close to that. I mean, I have a very

specific personality type and appeal, and yours is much vaster. So we're going to get into this book. But you tend to write some... Like Tuesdays with Mori, which was one of the most... six, or maybe the most successful book of all time, wasn't necessarily, I mean, it was memoirish, whereas twice and the little liar, the five people you meet in heaven, right? That book I actually haven't read yet. I'm going to read that on my flight to New York this week. That's one of your books that I need to read. How do you decide what you're going to do? I mean, I know the story with Tuesdays with Mori, right? You were kind of doing that for Mori. Yeah, Tuesdays of Mori was an accident. I was just going to visit an old professor of mine who was dying from Lugarig's

disease. And one visit turned into another and another. And we ended up doing kind of a last class together and what's important in life once you know you're going to die. But there was never supposed to be a book. It was just the series of visits. And then at one point during these visits, he told me that his biggest fear was that when he died, his family was going to go broke and they were going to have to sell the house. And, you know, because they didn't have the money to pay for his bills. So I got the idea to, you know, try to put a book together and see if I could raise enough money for him to pay his bills. And everywhere I went, everybody turned me down. Everybody. They said it was a stupid idea, that I was a sports writer, that I was, it would be depressing,

that I didn't know how to write a book like that. Then I probably would have given up on it, except that, you know, I was trying to do something for somebody else, which is kind of one of the points of the book. And so I kept pushing. I found one publisher who was willing to do it. three weeks before Mori died and gave us just enough money to pay his bills. And I gave Mori all the money and said, here, you don't have to worry about when you die. And that was kind of, for me, that was sort of the end of the, you know, journey. You know, I had finally kind of grown up a little bit at age 37 and had done something nice for somebody else instead of just my own career. And I was going to go back to sports writing.

And I just wrote this very small little book that wasn't supposed to sell. they printed 20,000 total copies, I think, for the world, then, you know, the world had different ideas and people took to that book and it grew into something that I never could have imagined and it kind of pinballed my career, particularly in writing, in a whole different direction. And so then from that point, you know, it was, well, what am I going to do next and, you know, led to a lot of other things. So talk to me a little bit about the impact of that book and about, how you received all of that?

You know, it wasn't expected, and I'd never written a book like that. You know, I was in sports, and so I sent it to a friend of mine, Amy Tan, who's the writer of the Joy Luck Club, who I'd known before that. And I said, listen, you write books like this. I don't, you know, is this any good? And she read it, and she wrote me back. She said, all right, I'm going to tell you two things. One, it's a good book, and I think a lot of people are going to read it.

and number two, you're about to become everybody's rabbi. And I did not know what she meant, but I do now. And so you say, how did I receive? You know, I mean, I went from being the guy that people would stop in airports because I was on ESPN, you know, and they would say, you know, hey, sports guy, you know, who's going to win the Super Bowl? And you could just say, you know, Patriots and get in the escalator and go up. And then all of a sudden I became the guy that people would say,

hey, you know, my mother died of cancer, and the last thing we did was read Tuesdays with Mori together, and can I talk to you about her, and can I show you a picture? And, you know, you can't just go patriots and go up the escalation. You know, you have to stop and you have to talk. And that's been my life ever since. And I'm not complaining about it. Quite the contrary. It's sensitized me in a way to people that I never would have had otherwise, and it's made me realize what's really going on in people's minds, even if they're strangers passing you by in an airport. And my concerns became kind of different, you know, and my interests became different. And so when it came time to write another book, I wasn't interested really in sports

books anymore. And I took to novel writing mostly because I was too scared to write anything after Tuesdays with Mori and nonfiction because I thought everybody would just keep saying, well, where's Mori? How come Mori's not in it? And so I said, well, I'll just go the whole other direction and just start writing fiction. And they told me I was an idiot for doing that. But I said, well, that's what you told me for Tuesdays with Maury. So, you know, you weren't right then. Maybe you won't be right again. And that was the five people you meet in heaven. And that kind of launched my fiction writing career. Wow. Who knows what other skills you have up your sleeve that you don't even know about? I mean, you're a sports. You've been a successful sports writer, a successful nonfiction

writer, and now a successful fiction writer. I mean, we don't even know what else you could be capable of. Well, who knows, probably very little. Maybe a professional ballerina, or I think it's a ballerino, actually, if it's a male ballerina. Okay, so five people you meet in heaven, how did you conceptualize that? Like, obviously you're taking a big risk, because in the writing world, I understand like you, like anything, I think professionally, once you get put in one corner, people want to keep you there. And they want you to keep producing what was the most successful. So how did you conceptualize the five people you meet in heaven? well it's funny you asked that and and you know one of the reasons i was interested in talking to you

is because i feel that you probably have endured the same thing you know you probably have been told well you're a stand-up comic so you can't host a show you host a show so you can't host a podcast you host a you know you can't you can't you can't and uh i was certainly told that you know after tuesdays with mori which nobody wanted then all anybody wanted was wednesdays with morry you know and every time i went into a publisher you know and every time i went into a publisher they would say, yeah, give us another Mori book. I said, I don't have any more Mori books. I said everything I had to say, but I do have this idea for this novel. And the idea of the novel was I wanted to write about people who feel that they don't matter. And so I came up with this idea based on an

old uncle of mine who had told me a story about a near-death experience where he had died and he had seen all his relatives waiting for him at the edge of his bed before he kind of came back into his body and lived again. And I always had this idea that that's what happens when you die. And so I came up with this idea that there would be this old guy, kind of like my uncle, World War II vet, who died trying to save a little girl from an accident at a pier where he worked, an amusement park, and a cart falls. And he goes to push her out of the way and he feels these two little hands and her hands. And then he dies. And he doesn't know if he saves or not. And he goes to heaven and he finds out that the first stage of heaven is you meet five people from

your life. Each of whom was in your life for some reason. Maybe you knew them. Maybe you didn't know them. Maybe it was a relative. Maybe it was someone you spent two minutes with. But in some way, they changed your life and you changed their life forever. And with each person he meets, he finds out that he was very significant, you know, and that this is something that he did, that they didn't think mattered, changed this and changed that. And he keeps asking them, well, what happened at the end of my life? I felt these two little hands in my hands, know, did I push the girl out of the way? Did I save her? Did I save her? Nobody can tell him until the end. And the last person that he meets is a little girl who he was responsible for killing

during the war. And he didn't, he never knew about it. And he says, you know, after she tells him whenever he breaks down and she tells him, he says to her, but did I save the little girl? Just tell me that was my life worth something that I, did I push her out of the way? And he says, and she says, no, you pulled her, you know. And he says, well, no, I felt her hand. hands. And she says, no, those were my hands and I was bringing you to heaven. And the reason that I tell you that story is because when I went around to different publishers to tell them the story of five people in me in heaven, I went to this one place called Hyperion. And it was the only place that was willing to listen to me about writing a novel. Everyone else just wanted Wednesdays

with Mori. And they said, well, we'll hear your story. What is it? And I told him the story, And I got to that point where he says, the little girl says to him, those were my hands and I was bringing in heaven. And a woman in the room burst into tears. And she said, oh, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. And I said, no, it's okay. It's okay. So they said to me, we want this book. We don't want Wednesdays with Maury.

We want this book. This is going to be a really good book. So I left that meeting and I got in the elevator with my literary agent and I said, okay, two things. Number one, let's sign with this company because they were willing to do a novel and they want to do it. And number two, whoever that woman was, I want her to be my editor. And that woman became my editor for the next four books that I wrote. And she always joked around that that was the luckiest cry that she ever had. I love that story.

Yeah. I mean, Wednesdays with Mory's is so emblematic. First of all, Mory's dead. So I don't know what Wednesdays with Mory would look like. It's so emblematic of our, like, you know, creative worlds, like the people, the decision makers in creative lands. And another thing that in you telling us that story reminds me of is my favorite quote of all time, which is it doesn't matter how many people say no, you just need one person. All you need is one person.

And everyone gets so fixated on the rejection in any sort of creative endeavor and on a larger scale in any endeavor. You know, people get so hung up on the rejection. and it doesn't matter how many people don't get you. It just matters that somebody does and somebody gives you the green light to go ahead with your creative ideas. So this is another example of that being so true. And yeah, I love that.

I mean, I almost burst in tears. Now I'm like, do I have to read the book? But I will read the book because I just love your writing so much. Let's talk about The Little Liar. I'm so curious as to how you create these kinds of ideas for the books because your books are so disparate. Like each one is so different than the next.

And how does one come up with that, like the concept of lying and how a lie can spread and change the course of history? Well, I think the reason that my books are different one from the other is because I tend not to approach writing, certainly not novels, the way that most people do. Most of my writer friends, they come up sort of with a plot. You know, they've got an idea that this is going to happen or a couple characters are going to do this. I never do that. I always try to come up with a theme and that I want to write about. And then once I say, okay, I'm really interested in that theme, then I try to create a story around that theme. And that's probably why every story sort of comes out different. So the five people mean heaven, the theme was that people who don't think they matter should find out that everybody

matters. And then I created a whole heaven and everything around that because it served the theme. The little liar, I actually, I went to a, I went to a Holocaust museum in Israel on a book tour about 10 years ago and went into this Yad Vashem, it's the really big Holocaust museum that they have there. And on the walls are all these videos of people that were collected a lot by Steven Spielberg, I think, when he was making Schindler's list. And they just run constantly. You know, they, they're always running. It's just people recollecting different moments. about the Holocaust. And one of them I stood in front of, and this woman, it was an older woman, and she was saying, everybody always asks me, why did we get on those trains when they knew

that where they were going to concentration camps and we were going to be murdered? Why didn't we fight back? And she said, they don't understand that we were lied to, that they would use Jewish people to lie to us and to tell us that we were going to new jobs or new homes. And that's how they got us onto the trains. And these Jewish people, they only lied to us because they were being threatened themselves that their families would be killed if they didn't do what they said. And I always thought, wow, there's got to be some kind of story there because what a terrible, I mean, war is awful and Holocaust is awful. But then to make your own people lie to their own people and leave them to their deaths, how would you live with telling that lie? But it seems so dark to me,

Chelsea, you know, like, God, I'm getting depressed just even thinking about. that, who's going to want to read that? And then I, about a couple years ago, I said, what if I told that story? Because I wanted to write something about the truth, because I think it's pretty obvious that in the last couple years, truth has become a relative term, you know? And it really does affect the world, you know, no matter what your particular view of it is. I mean, if you can't trust the things that you're hearing or people that you're hearing them from, it changes everything. I think you said it right there, what your view of it is. You know, there shouldn't be different views of the truth. The truth is the truth, but now there are multiple,

there's multiverses. Right. So I thought, what if I make it that it's a kid instead of an adult who would know better? What if it's a kid who's never told a lie before in his life and he gets tricked into telling his own people that it's okay to get on these trains? And how would he live with that? And that's when I knew I had a book and I started exploring it. And that's what happens to little Nico in this story, that he's never told a lie before. He lives in this Greek village, and he's known for just being a kid who can't tell a lie. And the first lie that he tells is when a Nazi tricks him into telling the people on the trains that everything's going to be okay and get on the trains. And he does this for three weeks until the last day, he sees his own family being put in one of these train cars.

And he runs to want to join them. and the Nazi doesn't let him go. And he says, but I want to go with them. I want to go to the new jobs and the new homes. And the guy, the Nazi says, there are no new homes, you stupid Jew, you know. And in that moment, he realizes that he's told a lie and his family is sent away and he's left behind. And from that point forward, he can never tell the truth again. He becomes this pathological liar, which seems to me, Chelsea, I don't know, that seemed to me like that would be kind of the natural thing that would happen.

and your mind would so explode that truth would just become almost poison because of look of what happened with it. And he becomes this pathological liar and it follows him and his family and this girl who loves him for the next 30, 40 years on their different paths. It was a really hard book to write because, you know, every day you're immersed in, I mean, you have to write as a Nazi, you know, I don't ever want to imagine that I could know what's in the head of a Nazi, but I had to. it was exhausting and um when i finished it i was proud of it and i was glad that i wrote i always wanted

to write one book for holocaust literature you know to contribute to that i think it's important that that's not forgotten but i didn't want to write you know the such and such of auschwitz you know a lot of books have been done this similarly and so i wanted to come up with an original idea and i think i did and i'm very pleased and honored that you think that that's a good book it means a lot to me And you fictionalize like Nazis. You fictionalize Hitler in the book instead of calling him by his name. Why do you do that? Just under the umbrella of fiction?

No, I didn't want his name in any of my books. Okay. So I just referred to him as the wolf, which is how he referred to himself. Actually, everything in The Little Liar is historically accurate, everything, except the characters who I invented and put in. I researched the hell out of that book. I went to Thessalonica and met with a bunch of it. of people and saw or even the house that he lives in is a real address in that city because i just

wanted it to ring it's you know trying to make up something during the holocaust will never be as poignant or as moving as basing stuff off of real things that happen because in that period of time the real things that happened were just so moving and so horrifying and so inspirational in some ways. Even the moment where his grandfather, all the family is in the concentration camp in Auschwitz and the grandfather every night makes them all gather together and pray and say thank you for whatever they had during the day. And you can imagine what can people say, how can you say thank you for anything when you're in a concentration camp? And he makes them go around. Everyone in the family and one of them will say, you know, I'm thankful that I got an extra spoonful of soup. And one says,

you know the guard who always beats me was off today so i didn't get beaten and one says the tooth my rotted tooth fell out of my mouth and one says i saw a bird you know and just that that notion of having hope uh even under the most dire of circumstances you can't make that stuff up you know i i read about moments like that in listening to survivors talk or tapes of survivors talk and just and just kind of created my own thing that was parallel to theirs but but trying to create it from whole cloth is foolish that the stuff that happened is so inspirational you might as well use it as your inspiration and what is your process like what does it mean when you're going to sit down and write a book and what does that mean to your family like are you gone yeah means bye bye

yeah my wife and and all my family kind of know when i'm in a book mode i kind of just walk around with a glassy expression for the better part of eight or nine months. And my wife has to repeat things to me many times. But my process isn't as dramatic as I think people like to imagine it. I just get up in the morning and come down here where I am to my office and just sit down very, very first thing. I don't read anything. I don't listen to anything.

I don't turn on a computer or television. I want a fresh, fresh head. you know, and I find that I only really have that when I first wake up. And I just write for the next two and a half, three hours maybe, and then that's it. And I could sit there for another eight hours, but nothing is, nothing's going to come. And so I've learned that, you know, you kind of, you go until your tank is empty and then you come back and do it again. I do always try to end on a positive, like if I'm in the middle of a good paragraph or something, I stop myself because I find, like, when you wake up in the next morning,

you look forward to coming down and working on it if you left it someplace good, but if you left it in the middle of a really bad paragraph, you're going to just stay in bed. Oh, that's great. I love that. That's great. Yeah.

So have you ever read the book, or it's not really, well, there's a book, Daily Rituals, have you ever seen that book where it talks about writers, processes? It's all these different famous painters, sculptors, artists, writers, creatives, and what they do. And it talks about the first few hours of each day. And then it talks about how you need some physical, you need a physical break.

You need some sort of exercise, food. And then people like Hemingway would, you know, get shit-faced at 2.30 in the afternoon, come back and start writing again after their walk to the bar and back. But so many people, I mean, it's very well researched that the first few hours of your day are your most creative and where you have the freshest ideas.

but I love the idea of not looking at anything when you sit down. That's fresh advice. I'll tell you the other really good piece of advice I got with regard to writing came when I was really, really young, and I was just starting out. It was in New York, and I had been a musician, and I was kind of transitioning out of being a musician. And I got a job writing for a TV shopper magazine that they would give out in the supermarkets, but they would have a feature story on the cover,

which is really embarrassing. I look back on it because I would call people saying, hi, I'm Mitch Album. I'm writing for TV Shopper, and I'd like to interview. I can't believe. And they wanted famous people would agree to be interviewed to be on the TV Shopper magazine. And one of them was this photographer

whose name escapes me, but it was kind of like Scovulo, you know, he's really well known back then. And I went and interviewed him and he said, I somehow asked him, you know, how did you get started, which you process or something like that? He said, well, when I was really young, there was a photographer like me, you know, well-known and everything, and I really respected him.

So I took a bunch of pictures, and I sent my best stuff, and I sent it off to him and asked if he could give me any advice. He said, I waited, I waited, and about three months later, I got an envelope back with my pictures and a note. And the note said, it's obvious to me that you've mastered the basics of good photography. Now surround yourself with the best music, the best art, the best books, best film, and everything else will take care of itself. And that was it. That was the total advice that he had. And he said, I found that to be, at first I thought it was kind of flippant, but then I found it to be true because there's an osmosis that takes place if you do surround yourself with other things. A lot of writers think, well, all I should do is just read, read, read, read, read.

You know, a lot of musicians think that all I should do is just, you know, play, play, play, play, play. But there's an osmosis that takes place with other forms of art that I think sink into you and affect you. You know, my having been a musician, I find is a great asset in writing because I write with the rhythm. You know, and I can tell what the paragraph isn't working because I can kind of like, I write like this. And if I stop and I find, well, my head's not shaking anymore. Must be, this isn't working, you know. and then I'll change something and then I'll go back. Oh, I got it back again, you know.

So there's a lot of cross-influence from the different arts. And I thought that was a good piece of advice, too. Yeah, that's great advice. Okay, so we're going to take a break with Mitch Album, and we'll be right back. And we're back with Mitch Album. I used to wake up at 2 a.m. drenched in my own sweat, not the cutest. Then I found Pod 5 from 8 sleep, and it changed everything. It's built with women's health in mind and helps with those brutal hot flash.

It is a smart mattress cover that cools your body before a hot flash hits. And when I need an instant relief, I just tap the bed to use the app to activate hot flash mode. It's clinically proven to reduce hot flashes by over 50%. And it even cools each side of the bed independently. So go to 8Sleep.com slash Chelsea, use code Chelsea, and get $350 off. You will thank me later. In the new podcast, Hell in Heaven, two young Americans moved to the Costa Rican jungle to start over. But one will end up dead.

The other tried for murder. Not once. People went wild. Not twice. Stunned. But three times. John and Anne Bender are rich and attractive and they're devoted to each other. They create a nature reserve and build a.

a spectacular, circular home, high on the top of a hill. But little by little, their dream starts to crumble. And our couple retreat from reality. They lose it. They actually lose it. They sort of went nuts. Until one night, everything spins out of control. Listen to Hell in Heaven on the I-Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey there, I'm Kyle McLaughlin.

You might know me as that guy from Twin Peaks, Sex and the City, or just the Internet's dad. I have a new podcast called What Are We Even Doing, where I embark on a noble quest to understand the brilliant chaos of youth culture. Daddy's looking good. Each week, I invite someone fascinating to join me, actors, musicians, creatives, highly evolved digital life forms, and we talk about what they love. Sometimes I'll drizzle a little honey in there, too, if I'm feeling sexy in the morning. What keeps them going? And you're maybe my biggest competition on social media. Like when a kid says bra to me.

And how they're navigating this high-speed roller coaster we call reality. In Australia, you're looking out for snakes, spiders, and f***is. Right. Hey, he's no train McDougall. This is like the comment section of my Instagram. Join me and my delightful guests every Thursday. And let's get weird together in a good way. Listen to what are we even doing on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

The Big Take podcast from Bloomberg News dives deep into one big global business story every weekday. A shutdown means we don't get the data, but it also means for President Trump that there's no chance of bad news on the labor market. What does a bacon, egg, and cheese sandwich reveal about the economy? Our breakfast foods are consistent consumer staples, and so they sort of become. come outsize indicators of inflation. What's behind Elon Musk's trillion-dollar payout? There's a sort of concerted effort to message that Musk is coming back. He's putting politics aside.

He's left the White House. And what can the PCE tell you that the CPI can't? CPI tries to measure out-of-pocket costs that consumers are paying for things, whereas the PCE index that the Fed targets is a little bit broader of a measure. Listen to the big take from Bloomberg News every weekday afternoon on the IHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Okay, so let's talk about this newest book twice, which is another great concept, which is this young boy finds out very early on in his life as his mother is about to pass away that he is the ability to redo things. But he doesn't have the ability to redo them twice. He can only redo them once.

I mean, he can do it twice, but he can't go back and fix. Right. So at a certain point, like there was a point in the book where I was confused because he goes so far back. So he's redoing things that he's already redone, right? How do you square that? Because at one point, he goes all the way back many, many years, and he's already redone so many things along the way. Well, that's one of the problems when you create a magical world is then you have to live by your rules, you know? exactly and you keep saying what are the rules here again and then at some point you realize

it's like you know what i created the rules i'm just going to just going to write it and everyone will have to go along with it but yeah the premise of the story is that he has the power to do anything in his life again but only one time and he has to live with the consequence of the second time so for example he misses a shot to end a game a basketball game and he goes back to take that same shot again. And that time he gets hit in the jaw and breaks his jaw, he can't go back to the first one and say, I'll just take missing the shot. He has to live with the broken jaw going forward. And the presumption is that everything else that happens going forward sort of happens the same way that it happened before that he can't really undo any of those things. But the idea

of it was to address, again, like the theme, like I've told you, you know, I just try to find a theme. This theme was about the grass is always greener concept, you know, know, and as you get older, you run into a lot of people and you become a person who starts saying, you know, boy, if I could have done this again, my whole life would have been different or if I only hadn't done that, that it would be different. And I wanted to really explore that and see if it really isn't necessarily better or worse. And then as I was going along, I said, well, the thing that seems to be the one that people talk about the most or fantasize about the most love. You know, what if I had married somebody else? What if I had married that, that guy who

asked me and I turned him down? Or what if I had, what if I had gone on that date with that girl that I was too scared to? Or, you know, what if, what if? There's all those things, but we always think we can do better or, you know, our true love is someplace else. And I wanted to sort of explore that idea. So that's, that's what motivated me to write twice. Was that personal at all? Well, not in the way. I mean, I'm only, I've been married once and happily married. No, not related to your marriage.

Let's not get you into trouble here. But just in your life or like, I mean, obviously that's something that comes up. Like if you could, you know, I always get that question in every interview. Is there anything you regret? And it's like, well, I mean, if I sat down and thought about everything I fucking regretted, we'd be here for hours. I'd rather not think about it. I didn't do it.

So I'm here now. And while reading this book, you know, which is, It's such a fucking awesome book. And, you know, these books are so, they're like nugget sized. Yeah. You know, they're a nice, like, I mean, they are. Like a perfect Saturday afternoon read. See?

It's just a perfect everything. I just love them. And this is like 300 pages, but you whip through these books so quickly. Our listeners are big readers. So I just want everyone to know how passionate I am. But when I do think about the possibility, like, I always had this fantasy. If I could just be a straight-a student from like kindergarten. through high school and actually apply myself and really just been like, you know, and then I would

have been the prom queen and all of these things. I always used to think that when I was in my 20s, like if I could have just made my parents been like this model child. And now when I think about the idea of that, it's like, I don't want to go through all of that garbage again. You know, I don't want to go through that life again because then you have to put up with all of the ugliness also. You have to re-experience all of the times where you were sick or someone died or all of those types of things. And it's like, I don't want to. What is your viewpoint after having written something like this? What do you think about that? Like, if you had the opportunity. Yeah, I think I had that viewpoint before I even wrote it. And that is, people have asked me the

same question, Chelsea, you know, is there anything that you would redo? And I think for some reason, they think the person who wrote Tuesdays with Morey is going to answer, oh, absolutely not. Everything that I've done has been, you know, has been for a purpose. And my answer is absolutely, I have to give you like 20 things right now that I would do differently if I had a chance to do them differently. But if you said to me, you have to unlearn everything that you learned from the mistake that you made, then I would say no. Because all of the mistakes and all the regrets and all the things that I did that I would do differently if I was at that moment again have taught me the things that I have learned. now, you know, and have shaped me into the person I am now. I'll give you a perfect example. You talk about it twice in a lifetime opportunity. So when my wife and I got married, we got

married kind of late age-wise. And we didn't have kids. I was 37. She was 39. And we didn't have kids. And I kind of delayed it, you know. I mean, I delayed getting married. I delayed having kids. I was really into my career at that time. And then Tuesdays with Mori happened. And that was all going on. And she really wanted to have kids. And by the time we sort of, you know, we're focused. It just didn't happen. And as the years passed, I started to feel like, man, I, you know, really, really missed something there by not having children. But then 16 years ago, I ended up going to Haiti after the earthquake and got involved with an orphanage down there. And one thing led to one other. And it's a long story that I don't want to bore you with. But

I ended up inheriting an orphanage that I was working at, and I have been running that orphanage ever since and go there every month for the last 16 years. And I have well over 100 children who have come through, and we have 22 of them up here who are either in college or in medical school now or some of the medical care. We have a little three-year-old daughter now that we adopted from Haiti. And none of that would have happened. I don't think if I had had kids the first time around because I would have been involved with that. I wouldn't have gone to Haiti in the first place and, you know, probably just wouldn't have had time to do it.

So I got this incredible opportunity, but it's only because I learned from my mistake earlier how much I appreciated children. And in fact, today, as we're speaking, we took our little girl to school for the first time. It was her first day of school. and I got to live that, you know, and it's like, wow, my age, I get to take a little girl of school, and get to hug her, and she grabbed me, she said, I don't want to go, you know, and all that, you know, of course, I'm taking pictures of all of this because you appreciate, you know this now, like, I'm going to need this later, and so to have that opportunity

is a miracle, but I don't think it would have happened if I hadn't made the first mistake. So that's just one silly example of my personal life, but I think everybody, probably has something in their life that they can look at that way. Yeah, that's so beautiful. I mean, what a gift. What a gift you've been given with that orphanage and what a gift you've been able to give. Like, the gift is always, you know, sometimes we think we're doing something and really the gift is ours to take and enjoy. I mean, that is such a beautiful story. Thank you for sharing that. I want to ask you personally, with all your iterations in your life, like now we're finding out you you were a musician also or I'm finding out anyway and deep down

I do believe you one day you will become a ballerino on a personal level your evolution and your creative evolution how is that impacted your life because you obviously know that you have the capabilities to do all these different sorts of things and I would imagine that that adds a lot of I don't want to say confidence, because it's more than that. It's more, it's like there's such value in everything that you're doing. How does that impact you? Well, I have had a lot of iterations to my life. When I was younger, I was all about ambition and was all about achievement and accomplishment.

I rose very quickly. First, I was a musician and I failed. So my first experience was failure. And then I moved into writing and journalism and got into sports writing and I had the opposite. I had like a really fast ascension. And I became a lead columnist at the Detroit newspaper when I was 25 and was traveling around the world and covering sports stories and writing sports books and everything. I was on ESPN multiple times. I worked like 120 hours a week and went pedal to the metal, whatever it is, until I was about 37.

And that's when I encountered Mori and sort of everything kind of screeched to a halt. And he kind of really opened my eyes. You know, he was really somebody that I loved when I was younger and had totally forgotten about. And, you know, not forgotten in my brain, but just had paid no attention to because I was so busy, busy, busy. And now here he was dying. And every Tuesday, it was like hitting the breaks on my life and, you know, no phones, no anything. and we would just sit there, and I felt like I was a student again. I felt like I was back in college, and I was sort of reminded, like, wow, you really have changed.

You know, you're not the same person that you used to be when you were listening to him and not necessarily for the better. Now, I ended up writing that book, and as I told you a little earlier, it kind of took me over, not the other way around. And like it or not, I became a person that people started coming to and asking, you know, they would sometimes people would say, Mori, what do you, and I go, whoa, I'm not, I'm not Mori. I'm the stupid one. You know, I'm the one on the other side of the couch. But people do that all the time still. You know, and when you start hearing grieving stories and you're going to hospice and you're on the board of hospice and you're going to funeral parlors and you're asked to speak at, you know, people's memorials. And you start to change and you become sensitized. And so then I started to realize that I had an obligation

maybe to bring that kind of thing to my work and that writing about games and who's making a tackle or whatever is all well and good. But you might be able to do something else. And I remember Mori said to me one time, what do you do for your community? And I said, what do you mean? And he said, you know, what do you do for charities for people who are in need? I said, I write checks. And he said, well, anybody can write a check. But you've been given a voice and you need to do something with that voice and just aggrandize yourself. I remember that because only your professor uses a word like a grandize, you know. And I've never forgotten that, you know, that really stays with me.

And so I had that part of my life where I started to say, well, okay, you've been given this platform and you've been given this success. What are you going to do with it? You need to go buy a bigger car or are you going to try to help people? And, you know, when I got involved, particularly with Haiti, I'm very involved here in Detroit, or where I live with the city here. And I started and operate a number of charities here. But I think when I got involved in Haiti with the orphans, that became this whole other chapter of my life,

where suddenly my life was about kids and their illnesses. And, I mean, believe me, Chelsea, I could spend 10 straight hours telling you about scabies and childhood malnutrition and brain disease and cerebral palsy and all kinds of issues that our kids have, that nobody pays any attention. There's no food for them. There's no water.

There's no electricity. And trying to, you know, I'm trying to figure out how I can get diesel fuel for less than $20 a gallon. You know, when someone's calling me and saying, we're making a movie out of your book, you know, and it's like this completely different sort of worlds, you know, that I have to sort of navigate between. And now I'm talking to you, you know. So I've learned that life can be a lot of different things.

And you can be a lot of different things yourself. And like I said to you, I was anxious to speak to you. because I admire the fact that you've done a lot of things yourself and you haven't let people tell you know you're this. I remember I got a chance to meet Maya Angelou once. And she and I were just talking in a hallway. And I said, can I ask you a question? It's going to seem really weird. She said, yeah. I said, okay, you write poetry, you write fiction, you've been an actress, you've done all this stuff. Has anyone ever told you just stay with one thing? And she said, yes. And it's the coolest thing you can ever say to somebody. And I said, well, why do you say that?

She said, because it's telling a bird that it shouldn't fly. And I thought that that was really beautiful. And she said, don't ever let anybody tell a bird that it can't fly. And so I've tried to sort of live my life that way and not worry about the category that I'm in. But if I feel like I have something to contribute or something to offer in some way, or I can help somebody or I can write something, and whether it be a book or a movie or whatever that's going to have some positive effect, I should do it. it, whether I'm supposed to do it or not.

And are you injecting yourself into these books that you write? Like, is there a part of you that's in this book twice that is part of the main character? Oh, yeah. Alfie, this character is named Alfie. He's the boy. And many of the mishaps that he has when he's younger with girls are straight out of my playbook. There's a scene where he goes up to talk to a girl who has a bit of a bit of

have a crush on and he talks with his hands and he knocks a glass of milk into her lap and she just looks up and says oh god you know like that with that and and his response is look at that and that's exactly what happened to me and exactly what i said and then i just skunked off and never talked to that girl again so yeah i think you have to have a little bit in know of yourself in order to know your characters well and have them ring true there has to be be a bit of you in there. But the biggest thing is that it's, I really, I wrote it for my wife. And the love story is between Alfie and this girl Gianna, who he meets when they're very young in Africa. And then never sees her again until he happens to run into her, you know, when they're

college age. And he just kind of tumbles into love with her and feels like he's so lucky to have her. And finally she loves him back. And they have this wonderful love affair for a while until something happens and he misreads a situation and he's tempted to just undo it out of anger and whatever. And of course, he finds out that the one caveat to his power is love, that he can do anything twice except love. He can't get somebody to love him twice. So which I think, you know, that's kind of how it should be. You know, like if somebody truly loves you and you say, all right, you wait over here, keep loving me. I'm going to go out here and see if I can find something better. But just in case I want to come back, pick up where we left off. That seems so unfair. And so I made the rules, like you asked me before about the rules. Well, I can make the rules. I wrote the book. So I said, it doesn't work with love. And if you walk away from a true love, that person can never love you again. They'll be in the world, you know, that you revisit. They can be your friend, but they can never love you again. And of course, he makes this faithful decision. And then he has to live with the consequences.

And so it was my way of sort of saying to my wife, you know, both apologizing for any things that I've done that have been less than great. Satisfactory. Yeah. I went for great. You went for satisfactory. But okay, you know, somewhere in the middle. Right.

It also begs the question, which is so beautiful, is if you don't get somebody to love you twice, what will you do to be able to? to just continue to love them. That's right. And that's where our hero manages to salvage himself. I'm trying not to tell the whole story. Yeah, so am I, but, you know, probably failing loudly. But I just, it's so beautiful.

Your writing is so beautiful. It really is the definition of escapism are your books. Like I, and the reason I love reading so much is something that really takes me away. And every time your writing just does that. So I'm really, really grateful to you. I want to ask you before we have to let you go about what you read and what some of your favorite books are. Well, I read everything and I've learned, you know, that story about the photographer

that anything can be a source of inspiration for you. And so I don't ever say, well, I just read fiction because I'm writing fiction or I just read nonfiction because I'll read, you know, novels, I'll read biographies, I'll read instruction manuals. I mean, anything that I think is going to inspire me. I do tend to read a little differently like, okay, so this is Ann Tyler's dinner at the Homestick Restaurant, which is just sitting on my desk here. So I don't know if you can see. So you see the pages. Yes, are all dog-eared. Okay. And under each of those dog-eared pages will be a phrase that I will circle that I think is really great writing.

And then what happens is, I'll just pull these, that's why it's here, I'll just pull these books out. And whenever I'm going to start writing, before I do, I take it and I just flip the pages and I just read these great sentences that these authors have written. And Ann Tyler wrote a lot of really good sentences in this book. And they just inspire me. It's like, it's a little bit like, oh, I'm going to sit down and compose music. Let me listen to something that's really inspiring first, and then I'll sit down and I'll compose mine, you know. So I destroy my books, but I'm good with that. I've had people come up with Tuesdays with Mories that honestly, I don't know how the binding is even holding together.

You know, they're doggy, they're marked up there. They've got coloring all over them. Some of them have little tabs on the pages, five people you meet in heavens like that a lot, a little liar is like. And these are people who like underlined the books. And they come up and they apologize. They say, I'm sorry, I destroyed the book. I said, no, why would you apologize? Like, you ate the whole meal, you know, like you really, you devoured it.

look at what you did to the book. You know, someone who comes up on the book is pristine. For all I know, they read the jacket, you know. So I love that. And I don't consider, you know, books like holy that you can't touch them. I think they're meant to be absorbed that way. So that's basically how I read. I just read for inspirational writing.

And do you have any favorite books? Many. Have you ever read Searcy by Madeline Miller? No. You're the second person that's recommended that to me in about a week. There's some similarities between your writing and her writing. She packs a punch with sentences also. And it's beautiful.

It's a beautiful book. But what are some of your favorites? Gilead by Marilynne Robinson is one of my favorite books ever. History of Love by Nicole Krause. These are books that I've read like a hundred times, you know, just because I so admire that they're writing. I was a huge Tom Wolfe fan. I think the first chapter of the right stuff is one of the most.

creative ways of writing. When I was first getting into writing coming out of music, one of the daunting things about writing to a musician is it feels very limiting. You know, when you're used to, you got a whole keyboard, I'm a piano player, and when you have a whole keyboard to work with and all the sounds, it feels like the whole world is at your fingertips that you could create. And then when you're working in the world of letters and words and sentences, not so much, you know, especially when you're not as good at it when you begin, you know, you're getting started. It feels kind of, I'm just living within the, you know, the words to the left and the words on the right, and they're kind of creating a box.

And then you read that chapter where there's like italic, you know, tat, tat, tat, tat, ta, ta, ta, ta, ta, ta, ta, ta, you know, and he writes it out and sounds. And I remember reading that, and I said, wow, you can do that with words. You know, you can create sounds and you can create what people are thinking, and you can come in with a voice out of left field that's just, commenting on what you just read and then you can jump back out again. And it really inspired me to say there is no limit to, you know, what you could do with words. And I ended up kind of using that in my journalism in my early days as a sports writer. I would say, you know, I wrote a column and I would always not be limited by the traditional form of writing. So one time I had to write a story about the Kentucky Derby. And I didn't know anything about horse racing. I was going to the Kentucky

Derby. And so I kind of wrote a column about me interviewing a horse and a make-believe horse and the horse would talk to me about, you know, and I was asking different questions about what it's like to be a racehorse. And I remember, these are the days when people used to write your letters, you know, at the newspaper. And I went down, picked up my mail, and it was a letter from a reader, and I opened it up, and it was that column. And I opened it, I pulled it out, he literally cut it out of the paper, and he wrote, a horse talks to a jackass. I said, that's pretty good, you know, and I put that up on my bulletin board and said, you know, this is what happens when you take a chance. But still was worth, you know, to explore the

Yeah, yeah, I like the idea of not having a framework. And I like the idea of not having parameters because that's all that we're taught in this world is that there are limits and there are parameters. And that's why you're told to do the same thing you did well, repeat, repeat, repeat, repeat, which is not exciting for a creative brain. Okay, well, the book is called Twice. It is a love story. It's a beautiful love story. And it's a great book. Another great book from Mitch Alba. Mitch, we appreciate your time today. We'll take callers separately, you and me. And thank you so much for your time, for your talk. I loved it. You're very inspiring. Thank you. I'm really flattered that you like my work. I hope you enjoy five people you meet in

heaven and I didn't ruin it for you. Well, yeah, I do know the ending, but I will still read it. And I think there's some books. You only know a piece of the end. Okay, okay, okay, great, great, great. I'm going to read it on my flight to New York on Friday. And then I'm coming to Detroit. I'm doing shows in Detroit next year. I'm going to invite you guys, you and your wife to come to see me. Oh, we would love that. Yeah, I'd love to. That would be wonderful. I'd very much like to meet you in person. Thank you so much for having me on your program. Okay, wonderful. Have a great day, Mitch. Thanks so much.

Thank you, you too. Bye-bye. Hi. He's awesome. Awesome. Awesome. Like, I'm a true manch. I know.

I mean, first of all, a true guy. Like, what a model male, human being. The opposite of toxic masculinity. I know. Oh, my God. I was started crying twice. Yeah. It's like really powerful.

It's just coming through in his writing, too. Yeah. I'm so glad we got to his kids in Haiti. And I didn't know he had they adopted. I know. It's just gorgeous. It's just story is beautiful. It's like he's a vessel.

Truly. I mean, it is like, just like hearing about his life. Is that the right word, vessel? Like a conduit. Conduit, yeah. Yeah, you do hear that when he's like, I was focused on myself and I made this change. I did this thing to help someone else. And then all of these blessings came to him, but then he continued to pass it along.

I mean, just really wonderful. Now I've got to read The Little Liar. Yeah, that's a great book. Yeah. You know what's not fun? Waking of a 2 a.m. drenched in sweat. Been there. That's why I started using Pod 5 from 8 sleep. And let me tell you it is a game changer. It's designed with women's help in mind, especially for those of us dealing with hot flashes. Pod 5 is this genius smart mattress cover that fits over any bed and pulls your body before a hot flash can mess with your sleep. And when I need an extra relief, I just tap the bed or use the app to activate hot flash mode 30 minutes of instant cooling. It's like having a personal climate concierge. It's clinically proven to reduce hot flashes by over 50% and I genuinely sleep deeper and wake up feeling way more refreshed.

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You can try it risk-free for 30 days. Trust me, better sleep starts here. In the new podcast, Hell in Heaven, two young Americans move to the Costa Rican jungle to start over. But one will end up dead. The other tried for murder. Not once. People went wild. Not twice.

Stunned. But three times. John and Ann Bender are rich and attractive, and they're devoted to each other. They create a nature reserve and build a spectacular circular home high on the top of a hill. But little by little, their dream starts to crumble, and our couple retreat from reality.

They lose it. They actually lose it. They sort of went nuts. Until one night, everything spins out of control. Listen to Hell in Heaven on the I-Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey there, I'm Kyle McLaughlin. You might know me as that guy from Twin Peaks, Sex in the City, or just the Internet's dad. I have a new podcast called What Are We Even Doing? I embark on a noble quest to understand the brilliant chaos of youth culture. Daddy's looking good.

Each week I invite someone fascinating to join me, actors, musicians, creatives, highly evolved digital life forms, and we talk about what they love. Sometimes I'll drizzle a little honey in there too from feeling sexy in the morning. What keeps them going? And you're maybe my biggest competition on social media. Like when a kid says bra to me. And how they're navigating this high-speed roller coaster we call reality. In Australia, you're looking out for snakes, spiders, and .

Right. Hey, he's no train McDougall. This is like the comment section of my Instagram. Join me and my delightful guests every Thursday, and let's get weird together in a good way. Listen to what are we even doing on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. The forces shaping the world's economies and financial markets can be hard to spot. Even though they are such a powerful player in find. finance, you wouldn't really know that you are interacting with them. And even harder to understand.

Donald Trump's trade war, 2.0, is only accelerating the process of de-dollarization, which in a way is jargon for people turning away from the dollar. That is where the big take from Bloomberg podcast comes in, to connect the dots. How unusual is a deal like this? Unprecedented. Every weekday afternoon, we dive deep into one big global business story. The biggest story of the reaction of the oil market to the conflict in the Middle East is one of what has not happened. Katie, you told me that ETFs are your favorite thing.

They are. Explain that. Why is that the case? And unpack what it means for you. Our breakfast foods are consistent consumer staples, and so they sort of become outsized indicators of inflation. Listen to the big take from Bloomberg News every weekday afternoon on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Okay, so now we're going to take some callers without Mitch. Catherine? I thought our time was better spent with Mitch listening to him, talk about writing, for some reason.

And so let's take the callers ourselves. I think that's perfect. Yes. Well, our first question comes from Karen. She says, hello, Chelsea. Many of your stories resonate with me. I was adopted at birth and grew up with deep feelings of abandonment. I was also an angry teenager and turned that anger onto my parents, poor them.

My issues followed me through college. In my early 20s, my aunt connected me with a fantastic therapist, and I had a breakthrough of sorts. However, I was still searching and ungrounded. I tried marriage to fix my issues and immediately recognized my mistake. I now call that my starter marriage. In my early 30s, I remarried, had my daughter, and found my birth parents. The discovery of these new relationships brought turmoil, but also emotional connection that had previously been just beyond my reach. There have been many twists and turns in my life, many of which have seemed faded, such as connecting with my second husband in 1998 after near misses in which we'd nearly cross paths many times. I'm currently trying to write a book to capture my life

story, which I think is worth telling. I have initiated the process countless times and can't seem to get started. I know you've written multiple books. So my question to you is, how did you start? Did you develop a framework and then start writing? Did you just free flow? Did you have a ghost writer? I'd appreciate any guidance you can offer, Karen. Hi, Karen. Hi. How are you? Thank you so much for having me on. I appreciate it. You're so welcome. I like your full blonde hair. It looks nice and thick. I got a great head of hair. From another blonde. I mean, mine's obviously not real anymore, but it's very hard to have thick blonde hair. Thank you. So congrats on that feat. Thank you for your note. We just had Mitch Albem on talking about his writing. So he talked about getting up every morning. He doesn't expose himself. I don't know. Do you have a job? I do. I'm a graduate nursing professor.

Okay. What does that mean? So I'm a nurse practitioner. So I'm clinical faculty for master's prepared nurses that are going for their nurse practitioner. Oh, wow. That sounds nice. It's amazing. And so what is your schedule like? So I'm mostly online grading and I do site visits. So I have a lot of flexibility. Great. So then what he said, first thing in the morning is when you're bringing. is the freshest. There's lots of data to back this up. So that's really what you want to do is he's told me something that I don't do, which is not check any media, not check phone, not check anything. And he just goes and starts writing before anything can kind of make an

impression on him. So, and writes for about two and a half, three hours each morning and then leaves it there because he said he could sit there for another eight hours and it just would be useless. And I find that to be true in my own experience as well. It's first thing in the morning when my eyes are fresh and when my head is fresh and I'm well rested to get up and that is I think the most creative time for most of us. I think not looking at anything, not looking at the news, not looking at any social media, not even looking at your phone is really a great piece of advice that he gave. So yeah, I would say to do that. And I wouldn't be too strict with your guidelines for yourself because the desire is there and the construct, you just

have to envision what you're trying to put out there. Like with my most recent book, I wanted, my goal was to impart the wisdom that I had gleaned and to inject women with a little bit more confidence. Like, that was my MO. So everything that came, was born out of that idea. And so, like, you know, I opened my last book with a chapter about, it's called Little Girl. It's like, who do I want it, who I wanted to be when I was a little girl. How, did I envision myself becoming and what kind of woman did I see myself becoming? And then the book takes you through all of the ways in which I attempted and got derailed or wasn't really conscious about it and was derailed and then realized, wait a second, where's that woman, you know? So that

was like my through line. I don't know that I think sometimes you have a structure in your head and sometimes you have a structure on paper. It really depends what kind of brain you have. You're talking about writing your life story, basically, right? Right, right, yeah. And I think it's important and valuable to think about what it is you're giving to the readers that are going to be reading this. So I get a little confused about that. So I think I want to tell my story and then I think about do I need to make it a larger

picture of maybe, you know, my extended family and then intertwine my thread throughout it and I get caught in the weeds or I think too large. It's really hard to figure out how to start and what to tell. And then I just kind of, you know, I spin around and around. One tool that might be helpful is to get yourself a pack of like three by five note cards and go through right on each one sort of like a story or a scene that you want to write about. And, you know, you might hang them up on a wall. You might just have them in a stack.

but if you're having a writing day, you know, whether that's, you know, you have a couple hours in the morning or even just, you know, 45 minutes in the morning, go through, pick one that's speaking to you that day and write about that. Like, you don't necessarily have to write it chronologically. You can always go back and then, you know, put stuff chronologically and weave it in. So you can just go to whatever, like, you're in the mood for or whatever is speaking to you that day. That's a great idea because when I'm thinking of a timeline and starting at childhood, I can't think of any. great meat to, you know, grab onto and initiate that story. And I've always been kind of thinking about it in a chronological manner. And so I get stuck on that. And then I'm like, oh, well, so that's a great idea. Yeah. And also those index cards that you get, you know, there's big momentous moments or the moments that you know you do want to write about, right? You put those all down. The things that stand out the most. So like your early childhood, you're saying there's, there's some, you know, you don't have a very clear idea of where to begin. I think if you put down your biggest memories and

your loudest moments on blue cards, that will kind of help you remember where, like, it will kind of help trigger you where to begin. Because if you start writing that stuff, usually writing begets more writings and memory seeking begets more memories. So I think that like just by the practice of writing down the things that you do recall and the big instances that you do want to convey in your book, you're going to start to remember other things. Oh, that's really great. I hadn't even tried that. I hadn't even thought about that. So that's really, that's helpful. Yeah. And even if you're writing, say, a thousand words a day, at the end of three months, you've got 90,000 words. You know, so take it in small bites if you need to. Yeah. And I also really

just like, I'm not a very structured person. I like to just do my own thing. I don't follow rules well. So for me, it's really, when I sit down and I start writing, it creates a need to want to write more. And another great piece of advice Mitch Album just gave was he always leaves his writing on a positive note or a positive paragraph. Like if he's in the middle of a good paragraph, he'll stop if it's been two and a half or three hours. Because that way the next morning when he wakes up there's a level of excitement to return to the page yeah that's really really helpful too yeah these things i'm so structured and organized that everything you're saying to me really you know isn't anything i've thought about and i think probably will help get the ball rolling

actually yeah yeah just don't be so don't be so regimented about it and allow yourself to be a free thinker with regard to this book. Like, do things you haven't done before since you've never written a book before. This is the perfect opportunity to try to loosen your whole structure up. Yeah. Sure.

Okay. Good stuff. Thank you so much. Great. Love it. Thanks for calling in. I used to wake up at 2 a.m. drenched in my own sweat, not the cutest.

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You will thank me later. In the new podcast, Hell in Heaven, two young Americans moved to the Costa Rican jungle to start over. But one will end up dead. The other tried for murder. Not once. People went wild. Not twice. Stunned.

But three times. John and Ann Bender are rich and attractive and they're devoted to each other. They create a nature reserve and build a. a spectacular circular home, high on the top of a hill. But little by little, their dream starts to crumble. And our couple retreat from reality. They lose it. They actually lose it.

They sort of went nuts. Until one night, everything spins out of control. Listen to Hell in Heaven on the I-Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey there, I'm Kyle McLaughlin. You might know me as that guy from Twin Peaks, Sex and the City, or just the Internet's dad. I have a new podcast called What Are We Even Doing, where I embark on a noble quest to understand the brilliant chaos of youth culture. Daddy's looking good. Each week, I invite someone fascinating to join me, actors, musicians, creatives, highly evolved digital life forms, and we talk about what they love.

Sometimes I'll jerse a little honey in there, too, if I'm feeling sexy in the morning. What keeps them going? And you're maybe my biggest competition on social media. Like when a kid says bra to me. And how they're navigating this high-speed roller coaster we call reality. In Australia, you're looking out for snakes, spiders, and f***is. Right. Hey, he's no train McDougall.

This is like the comment section of my Instagram. Join me and my delightful guests every Thursday. And let's get weird together in a good way. Listen to what are we even doing on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. The Big Take podcast from Bloomberg News dives deep into one big global business story every weekday. A shutdown means we don't get the data, but it also means for President Trump that there's no chance of bad news on the labor market. What does a bacon, egg, and cheese sandwich reveal about the economy? Our breakfast foods are consistent consumer staples, and so they sort of become.

come outsize indicators of inflation. What's behind Elon Musk's trillion-dollar payout? There's a sort of concerted effort to message that Musk is coming back. He's putting politics aside. He's left the White House. And what can the PCE tell you that the CPI can't? CPI tries to measure out-of-pocket costs that consumers are paying for things, whereas the PCE index that the Fed targets is a little bit broader of a measure.

Listen to the big. Big take from Bloomberg News every weekday afternoon on the IHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This caller is Jean. She says, Dear Chelsea, I listen to your podcast religiously and find your advice to be so refreshingly honest and straightforward. I'm writing to you as a fellow author. I've published many books in my life, but now I'm writing a memoir about being in a family of 10. My early childhood trauma was so bad it manifested in medical issues, so I had to cut ties with my family. I'm writing this book to challenge myself as a writer, process my experiences, and share my stories with others who can relate. I know I'll need to change the names of family members, but anyone who knows me will know who I'm writing about. Even though my stories aren't

pleasant, they are all true. How do I deal with the fallout and maintain my conviction and composure should one of them reach out to me, especially if it's in anger? Thank you in advance for your help. You're one of the smartest, sweetest, strongest women I know. Gene. Hi, Jean. Hi. Hi. I'm so excited to meet you. Oh, thank you for your kind words. And I'm so sorry that you had such a traumatizing childhood. Thank you. Are you writing it as nonfiction? Are you writing it like as fiction? No, I'm writing it as nonfiction memoir. Yeah. I honestly, it's not really your problem what anybody thinks about what you're going to write about. You're entitled to write your story. Everyone is entitled to tell their story and write their story. And while you do have to

change the names and you have to change the scenery, yes, you're right. People are going to know what you're talking about. But I don't think it does you any good to really consider that aspect of things, especially at this stage. It's almost like, you know, your efforts should just be going towards your honoring your story. Because by telling your story, you are helping so many people. And you just have to keep that in your, in the back of your mind at all times, that this is not just for you. This is for the world. Right. And it's for women. I like to always think like when I'm making a decision, you know, that I'm doing it on behalf of women. Not every little decision, but big decisions. I think, who am I doing this for? It's not.

can't just be for me, but it's for women. Absolutely. And that's the only reason I would share it, Chelsea. I feel very strongly about gleaning from my life experiences in my work as a writer. I'm almost 60 years old. Like, this is how I want to spend the rest of my working days is sharing my stories with people who can relate. But, you know, I am concerned about any potential negative interference from,

siblings. When it does come out, I have had siblings try to sabotage some of my book events and whatnot. And those books had nothing to do with them. So that kind of just hangs over my head a little bit. And I'm just wondering what should I do? Like how do I respond if, you know, and when that happens? I don't think there is a response for that. Any response is them winning, you know, like them trying to like sabotage you and you reacting to it. And you reacting to it. is them affecting you. And I think you have to just kind of, it sounds like a pretty toxic situation

that you've come from. And I honestly think you just have to be your own best protector and think of that little girl that you were that wasn't protected, that you're writing about. And this is your job to protect her in this moment.

Oh, thank you so much. That means a lot. And yeah, I mean, I am trying to listen to other memoirists to have gone through something similar and get their advice and what to do and what not. And so I'm leaning on people like yourself, too, you've written your own memoirs and your own experiences. And, yeah, so I'm leaning on all of you as inspiration for not just how to write this, but how to deal with any intrusions, you know, any negativity when this book hopefully is out and will be discussed. Yeah. And also, you know, you can't.

can't fight with someone who's not fighting back. So I say the worst case scenario, someone walks into one of your book events, you're having a book talk at a bookstore, an independent bookseller, and someone comes in and's like, this is a lie, this is a lie. Your response is nothing, is just to sit there and wait for security to escort them out. There's no argument to be had. Do you know what I mean? Like, that's a louder argument than an argument to not get into it. And I think it's not helpful to be putting your energy towards that right now anyway. Channel that energy and use that for the book. Yeah.

Under the assumption that there's not going to be any problem and there's going to be no intrusions and that nobody's going to try to sabotage you. I hope not because the way I look at it is like me walking into their office where they work and telling them, you know, that's not how to design a building or whatever they do for living, you know. Absolutely. That's how I feel about it, but how I feel is usually at odds with the people I grew up with, unfortunately. So I just, I hope I can maintain my composure. You can.

You can. Because by the time the book is published, you're going to get into a preparation phase. You know, you're going to prepare yourself for what happens in the eventuality that something negative like that does happen. It most likely won't. But if it does, then yeah, you're going to meditate on it. and you're going to prepare for that and how you're going to handle it. And you're going to handle it with grace and confidence, knowing that this is your story and nobody owns your story the way that you do.

Thank you. I mean, it's bottom of my heart. I don't want to hurt anybody. You know, it's not my intention. I understand. So I wrestle with that a lot. You know, these are not people I want to hurt. Yeah.

Well, I mean, that's worth saying, you know, in the book also. Yeah. It's a hard line. I mean, that's worth considering putting in, you know, like the prologue or the introduction to the book, you know, this is my story. And this, I did not set out to hurt anyone else, but telling my story, I'm setting out to help people who may have experienced something similar. That's perfect. Thank you. That's fabulous. Yeah. Great. All right. Well, I wish you lots of luck. Yeah. And lots of courage. Thank you. Thank you so much, Chelsea. I just love what you do. Keep doing it. I love you so much.

Thank you. Oh, thanks so much. Bye. Bye. Bye. Okay, that was your episode of Dear Chelsea for the week, everybody. We have minisodes that we are airing now. When do our minisodes come out? Every other Friday, Chelsea. Every other Friday, we have a mini-sode. If you need a little jolt, an extra jolt of us, we're here, we're here. And yeah, we'll see you next week, or you'll hear us, or what the fuck ever. Goodbye. The word of the week is aggrandize, verb, to increase the power, status, or wealth of something or someone. Used in a sentence, to self-agrandize may be beneficial if you use it to demand a raise at work. A grand eyes. I just announced all my tour dates. They just went on sale this week. It's called the High and Mighty Tour. I will be starting

in February of next year. So I will be touring from February through June. I haven't added second shows yet, but we probably will be to some of these. So go get your tickets now. If you want good seats and you want to come see me perform, I will be on the high and mighty tour. Do you want advice from Chelsea? Write into Dear Chelsea Podcast at gmail.com. Find full video episodes of Dear Chelsea on YouTube by searching at Dear Chelsea Pod. Dear Chelsea is edited and engineered by Brad Dickert, executive producer Catherine Law. And be sure to check out our merch at chelseahandler.com.

Johnny Knoxville here. Crimeless, Hillbilly Heist, my new true crime podcast from smartless media, Campside Media, and Big Money Players. It's the true story of the almost perfect crime and the Nimrods who almost pulled it off. It was kind of like the perfect storm in a sewer. That was dumb. Do not follow my example. Listen to Crimless, Hillbilly Heist on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,

or wherever you get your podcast. The Big Take podcast from Bloomberg News keeps you on top of the biggest stories of the day. My fellow Americans, this is Liberation Day. Stories that move markets. Chair Powell opened the door to this first interest rate cut. Impact politics, change businesses. This is a really stunning development for the AI world. And how you think about your bottom line.

Listen to the big take from Bloomberg News every weekday afternoon on the IHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, I'm Cal Penn, and on my new podcast, here we go again, we'll take today's trends and headlines and ask, why does history keep repeating itself? Each week, I'm calling up my friends like Bill Nye, Lily Singh, and Pete Buttigieg to talk about everything from the space race to movie remakes to psychedelics. Put another way, are you high? Look, the world can seem pretty scary right now. But my goal here is for, you to listen and feel a little better about the future. Listen and subscribe to here we go again

with Cal Penn on the Iheart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, I'm Kyle McLaughlin. You might know me as that guy from Twin Peaks, sex in the city, or just the internet stand. I have a new podcast called What Are We Even Doing, where I embark on a noble quest to understand the brilliant chaos of youth culture. Each week, I invite someone fascinating to join me to talk about navigating this high-speed rollercoaster we call reality. Join me and my delightful guests every Thursday and let's get weird together in a good way. Listen to what are we even doing on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This is an IHeart podcast.